We're Basically the Same

I’ve finally come back to my parent’s place from Richard’s, and you won’t believe what was waiting for me. Ethan had sent me a Swarovski necklace from Zurich. Isn’t that just too sweet! I don’t receive very many gifts, so when I do get them, they’re always such a surprise they mean a great deal. My parents are very Chinese lah, you know, they do the whole Ang Pow (red packet with money inside) thing instead. And it’s lovely when you’re broke, but nothing can make for the occasional surprise. But that’s the paradox isn’t it. If I keep getting presents, then they wouldn’t be a surprise any longer, and the part I enjoy most out of present getting is the non-expectancy of the deed.

So I come back in the middle of the day, all hot and bothered and slightly pissed because everything was just happening to me all at once (photo-shoots, meetings, fucking matriculation, apartment rentals); I was free-er at the beginning of the week, why the hell does everything happen just before the weekend. Anyway, there was this package from Zurich, and I though, ‘damn that’s weird, I didn’t buy anything online lately…’ (Stuff from Amazon normally goes through the Swiss post for some reason) And I open it and it’s the nicely wrapped box with silk ribbons and all, and I almost can’t bear to read the card. Because Ethan has just been too fucking sweet and wonderful and nice and long suffering (well, not that liking another girl in another country is that much of a torture, and I’m too stable to cause anyone emotional problems anyway, unless they already have it from the very start). I’m very touched, that’s all I can say. I’ve been very lucky I suppose, I mean, he did after all come down to Asia to backpack with me. It was mostly his idea, but Singapore’s the place he’d like to move to after he’s finished his masters because I’m in it. And also because it’s kinda cool and happening and not as polluted as Shanghai. (Of course it’s cool and happening if you know where to look.)

I had a little talk with some people over coffee yesterday, and one of the girls basically looked at me a little condescendingly and said it like I must be a completely weirdo and slut to consider every romantic, sexual conquest as an experience that has made me the person I am today. I thought that was really weird, because when I went back, and Richard and I were shooting bullshit about the lass glamorous bits of the medical profession (like constipation) and I was laughing so hard I couldn’t stand, I thought what a pity it would have been if I didn’t have all those experiences, and didn’t become the person that I am today.

Is virginity/ celibacy all that worth it? I think not. Sex with all those people I had slept with before doesn’t make me enjoy sex less with the people I really like. When you do it out of pure physical desire and emotion, out of an unadulterated want for the other person, sex stays pure. It’s when you start doing it to make yourself feel better, or specifically so you can get something materially tangible out of it that it starts to get bad. It’s just like how reading trashy chick-lit doesn’t stop be from enjoying something like The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I enjoy them both of course, but knowing the clear difference in quality doesn’t become an impossibility because my mind has been numbed by the other bits of trash that I’ve read and secretly enjoyed.

Oh the other hand, if you’ve never slept with at least a few people in your life, and you eventually marry someone out of insecurity (because you’ve never really experienced being wanted by anyone else), then you’ll just lead a half-assed romantic life for the rest of your life. Somehow it’s alright, because what you don’t know won’t hurt you. But I don’t think that’s true when it comes to romance. It’s biologically hardwired in people to require that their special other WANTS them. And at what level of want is necessary in order to stay sane in the relationship. And it’s a pity some people never have that.

And the other thing I realized was that it’s just a hell lot easier to defend being a virgin then to structure personal introspection into rational thought in order to get why you aren’t a virgin and am glad you are not (note, not proud, glad.) one to conventional Singaporean society. Either choice is not bad or good, it’s what you want at the end of the day that really matters. Choosing freely to preserve your virginity in this day and age takes as much confidence, courage and independence as choosing to sleep with who you want to when you wish. Both require independence from the opinions of the people that do not matter, and the confidence to live life how you really believe it should be led.

It’s the people that struggle to remain virgins, or sleep around to assuage their insecurities that make people on either end of the spectrum look at the other people on the other end with disdain and contempt. Pity, because the truth is, we’re both the same inside; we’re both choosing to live life how we believe it should be led.

Anyway, I have to go for Teh-tarik now man.

xoxox